Israel Innovation: Shapes Public Perception

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These days almost everyone wants to be innovative. Technological and Entrepreneurship values are good both for organizations, companies and also for places and countries. In fact, “Tech” seems not only the key for economic growth, but also as one of the leading messages now for marketing and branding.

But this isn’t a new story. Traditional communication researches show that the concept of ‘National Branding’ began in the mid-1990s. Moreover, almost Thirty years later, the number of countries who use advertising, public relations and social media for market themselves is getting bigger each year; whether its USA, UK, Canada or European countries, branding actions become essential and can make the difference between positive public perception to negative.

As a reign who suffered from one dimensional global media coverage, the state of Israel got a real opportunity to improve here public perception among international audiences. Indeed she does. Due to leveraging of the local High-Tech industry and recent successes stories, even the hostile countries can see Israel differently.

In fact, in the past couple years – Israeli tech firms succeed to get an international recognition. Whether it’s the collaboration between Waze-Google, Mobileye-Intel, or even Viber-Rakuten, it’s seems Israel established herself as innovation center for Start-ups and Tech companies.

The roots of this narrative can be found in 2009. It was the beginning of “Start-up Nation” Brand. Although the technological values ​​existing in Israel since the early 1990s, the Nickname as a world leader of Innovation got a real approval within the publication of the successful book “Start-up Nation” written by Dan Senor and Saul Singer.

Thanks to them, Israel’s positioning as a global leading innovator began officially. Since that moment, Israel’s economy gets a special focus in the right places. It maintains an especially high reputation and has been consistently recognized as a geographic center of global innovation and entrepreneurship; Recent report of OECD showed that Israel economy continues to perform exceptionally well with strong natural growth, mainly due to the dynamic Technology sector.

However, prior Hi-Tech success, the global media coverage has been one dimensional. pretty simple examinations of several worldwide newspaper and websites points for the narrative toward Israel mostly focused on security threats and terror.

Either way, when we are examining “National Branding” concept, it is important to recall that some Marketing-Communication experts show that the ability of countries to change their public perception is called into question. But in this case, the high popularity of Israeli Tech commodity is a sure advantage.

With consistent work of the politicians in the diplomatic sector, together with marketing and systematic public relations. Even demographical small countries like Israel can shape their reputation. The only question remaining is — how long will take to convince all stakeholders?

About the Author

Itzhak Mashiah is a Communication Researcher at the University of Haifa – Specializing in High-Tech, Innovation and Technology Industries. Itzhak is a Senior Strategic-Communication Consultant. He is also the Founder of the Media-Representations Project (Yitchugim Ba’Tikshoret).